Comment by MatejKafka
12 hours ago
You know why desktop Linux doesn't have much malware? Because ~no one uses it. That's it. Once you get users, you get malware.
The rest of your comment is just as ignorant.
12 hours ago
You know why desktop Linux doesn't have much malware? Because ~no one uses it. That's it. Once you get users, you get malware.
The rest of your comment is just as ignorant.
There is plenty of malware for Linux. The difference is that the OS won't install it for you.
I don't like the standard practices for installing software in Linux though. Most Mac or Windows users will go to the publisher's website and download. In Linux, it's often recommended to install via a package manager, possibly not even from an official repo, and especially not in Arch. More ways for the supply chain to get compromised, and it has.
So nobody is installing "monitor drivers" for Linux, but they're probably frantically installing packages trying to fix some random issue.
There was malware for systems with 1/1000 the userbase of Linux. Even Amiga and Atari had plenty of it, macOS when it had 2% share, and others.
This isn't accurate at all.
The reason people don't get malware on Linux is because they install software through the package manager, via trusted and reviewed repos. And drivers are all built-in to the operating system, not third party (with some exceptions, like nvidia).
On most Linux setups you aren't just downloading random junk from the internet and running it. Also the operating system won't install things automatically for you generally either. Even system updates are optional if you don't want them, and you won't be nagged for it.
Basically it comes down to a difference in culture.
No one uses it? There are dozens of us!
Linux doesn't install malware, because it is free software, which guarantees the four user freedoms. Whenever someone adds malware, anybody else can remove it for everyone or create an equally useful fork without it. Try this with Windows.
In other words, Stallman was right, and proprietary software developers have too much power over users. And they inevitably, sooner or later, leverage this power for (more) profit, even if you paid for the product.
Except there's plenty of proprietary software for linux, you just won't find it in default repos and have to install it manually.
Did I say otherwise? Any proprietary software for Linux suffers or will suffer from the same problem. But not Linux itself or any free software running on it.